Anil Kumar of Madhya Pradesh made light of a seventh place qualification to beat a strong field and won the gold in men’s air rifle in the 18th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Thursday.
In a well-contested final in which the one of the consistent shooters in recent times, Deepak Kumar of Air Force was pushed to the third place, Anil beat another Air Force shooter, Manoj Dalal, by 1.5 point for the gold.
Qualification topper Gagan Narang, who had shot 626.5, was not at his best form in an event in which he had won the Olympic and World Championship medals, and settled for the sixth place.
Olympian Chain Singh shot 622.5 and missed qualification for the final by 0.7 point.
Satyam Chauhan and Lagad Gorakh placed fourth and fifth respectively, in a field of seven, as Shahu Mane opted out of the men’s final.
The ploy proved effective, as Shahu kept improving from silver in the junior final to gold in the youth final, later in the day.
It was a thriller climax as Shahu pipped Aishwarya Tomar by 0.2 point for the youth gold, to bring the curtains down on the day’s competition.
Yash Vardhan who had beaten Shahu by 0.9 point for the junior gold had to settle for the youth bronze. He had to negotiate a shoot-off with Manvendra Singh after being tied on 205.9. Yash shot 10.4 to 9.8 by Manvendra, but could not aspire for a better medal as the lead by the top two was beyond reach.
In the concurrently conducted fifth trial in men’s rapid fire pistol, Gurpreet Singh who had placed seventh in the Rio Olympics, pipped London Olympics silver medallist Vijay Kumar 28-27 for the top spot. Gurpreet had shot 580 in qualificaiton to 575 by Vijay.
Shivam Shukla who topped qualification with 586 placed third, ahead of Adarsh Singh who shot 583 in qualification. Arpit Goel who had won the Kumar Surendra Singh championship gold the previous day, lost a shoot-off to Harpreet Singh and finished sixth.
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